


Mousetinequin

by Mertens



Series: Rat AU [4]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Gen, Mannequin, Mouse AU, Rat AU, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23415922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertens/pseuds/Mertens
Summary: (Mouse Christine Mannequin)Joseph Buquet intrudes upon a part of Erik’s personal life and learns the wrath of the Phantom.
Series: Rat AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626601
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	Mousetinequin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ms_Myth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Myth/gifts).



> Ms_Myth had the idea that Rat Erik has a Christine Mouse mannequin that’s a towel twisted to look like a mouse.

“It’s going to be a very lovely dress, Christine!” Erik said proudly as he arranged the fabric for the sleeves and pinned them in place. 

The dress, all blue with ruffles, was nearly finished being altered. Most of the work was already done, this one thankfully not needing as many changes to fit the form of a mouse for the simple reason that he had stolen it off of a plush animal toy instead of a doll like he usually did. 

The form of a mouse - he had created a perfect replica (in shape, at least, though the color and texture left much to be desired) of Christine by twisting an old rag into the shape of her. It provided an excellent way for him to design and create the little dresses that he so loved seeing her wear. 

He hoped to have this particular dress finished in time for her next visit. She was such a kind girl, always indulging him in his wishes to have her dressed when she stayed at his house with him. She was always a vision of loveliness, but the satins and silks and ribbons only enhanced her beauty, in his eye. 

He was lost in his daydreaming about how beautiful she would look (even more beautiful than usual! Was such a thing even possible?) once she was in the dress, that he didn’t even realize how close he was to his little table until he bumped into it, upsetting his teacup which was resting there and spilling the tea on both the dress and the towel Christine. 

“Christine!” he cried. “Oh, my dear! You’re all wet now!”

He fretted over the spill, realizing it was worse than he had first thought. He sighed deeply. He would have to wash the dress before the stain set. But once he removed the dress from the Christine towel, he found the tea had seeped into her fabric as well. He wrinkled his nose. This would never do. 

He carefully picked her up and took her outside of his house so that she could dry and not warp the floorboards. Once she was settled comfortably at a fair distance from his house, he placed a kiss on her cheek, noting that she tasted faintly of tea. 

What a feat it was to have hot tea in his little house, so far away from the kitchen where he acquired all of his food! Ah, but Erik was a terribly clever rat, and once he put his mind to something he nearly always achieved it. As such, he often had tea to drink but this came at a certain price - namely, spills such as this. 

He tutted a little and shook his head pityingly before turning going back inside to wash her dress. 

“My poor dear!” he moaned. 

He knew it was only a towel, but he liked to pretend it was really her at times. He took one last look at her as he hesitated in his doorway - even from here he could see the faint glint of her eyes - two shiny crystals he had appropriated from a costume of Carlotta’s. They were red, not black like Christine’s own beautiful eyes, but surely he could forgiven, because not only were these the crystals with the most sparkle (his Christine could not have dull eyes! Never!) but it also made him wistfully happy to think of her with eyes like his own - some common feature that they might share, something that made him feel less of a terrible freak, something that made him feel that Christine understood him. 

He finally went to clean the unfinished dress, completely oblivious to what was going on just down the hall. 

Joseph Buquet poked his nose around the corner, his sharp black eyes glaring at the terrible man with the net. Joseph knew he was at a disadvantage - while he had never been in these rooms before, the rat catcher almost assuredly had. 

He made a run for it while the man’s back was turned. With almost superhuman speed, the rat catcher turned and pounced and nearly caught him. Joseph dove underneath of a bookcase, his heart almost beating right out of his chest. 

“Come out from there, now,” the rat catcher said in a singsong voice. “You know I’ll get you eventually!”

Joseph hissed at the man, only to flinch when the net was shoved under the bookcase. He squirmed backwards, away from the front of the bookcase, knowing it was safest to put as much distance between him and the man as possible, but worried he would become stuck. 

“There’s not a single rat in this building I won’t catch... Not even that Phantom Rat can evade me forever...” he said, but his voice sounded doubtful at the end. 

Joseph huffed a laugh. The Phantom? Did this old man really believe in such silly stories? 

Joseph had heard of the Phantom - nearly everyone had, rat and human alike. But Joseph, like a number of rats, didn’t believe the Phantom really existed. They were just stories told to pups to keep them in line... Never mind that La Carlotta had sworn she’d seen a little figure dressed in an evening suit scampering out of her dressing room one evening, or that note the managers had received that consisted only of ink prints made by what appeared to be a rat’s hand, or the half a dozen rats who had claimed to have seen his horrible skull face with fiery eyes... 

The Phantom didn’t exist, and that was that. 

Joseph noticed a hole in the wall underneath the bookcase, and took his opportunity to get away from his assaillant. 

He’d most definitely never been in this room before. Once inside the new room, he took a good look around. There were many things here and there, but most notably was a large table with a little house. 

Joseph paused. Nothing he saw brought much interest to him, but he did _smell_ something - food. 

There was food in this room!

He sniffed carefully at the air, taking cautious steps. Had the rat catcher put food in a trap here? But no, he could hear the rat catcher in the room behind him. And this food smelled too fresh. Where was it? 

His nose led him up to the tabletop. The room had an eerie feeling to it, making his fur stand on end. What was the cause of this- this miasma? He looked behind him quickly, expecting the rat catcher to be standing there, a murderous glint in his eye, but the room was blessedly empty. His suspicions temporarily quelled, he turned back to the strange house. 

His heart felt like it would surely explode when he saw the terrifying figure there, eyes glowing a preternatural red. 

The Phantom! He was real! 

But the figure didn’t move and slowly the pounding in Joseph’s head relaxed. 

This was no Phantom! 

He chuckled nervously at his own silliness. He was smarter than that! 

He slowly approached this odd figure, realizing it was more the size of a mouse. But it was no mouse, either - it appeared to be made of an old cloth somehow. 

His nose wiggled, his head turning this way and that. It smelled of... _tea_? 

He came and stood right next to it, narrowing his eyes at it and studying it. Why was it shaped like a mouse? Why did it have crystals for eyes? Was this someone’s idea of a joke? He reached his little hands out to pick it up. It shifted in his paws, and his furry brow wrinkled. Curious, he unraveled it. 

It really was just a towel, after all. 

Inside the house, Christine’s dress was washed and hung to dry. During his task Erik had been daydreaming about a different world, one where he and Christine were happily married. What a lovely world that would be! His little wife by his side, to go for walks with, to sing with... Why, he could nearly swoon away with delight at the mere thought of it! 

Now that the dress was hanging to dry, he should go fetch his darling wife from the front yard... Wasn’t it lovely to have a big house out in the country, where his wife could sun herself on the lawn? 

His mind was still on this fantasy world when he went out to retrieve the Christine towel, and this was why his mind wasn’t quiet fully present when he saw what was happening right in front of him. 

Who was this scoundrel who had taken his wife apart?! His beloved was stretched out into a square patch of rag once more, and it made his blood boil - Christine! His Christine! How dare this horrible rat lay a hand on her, dismantle her in such a way! 

Joseph looked down at the towel in his hands, puzzled, and had but the briefest of moments to process the words that the booming voice bellowed from directly behind him. 

“THAT’S MY WIFE!”

_What the-_

But that was all that had time to go through Joseph’s mind, for in that instant, Erik descended upon him. 

Joseph Buquet could never truly say what, exactly, happened after that. He was afraid his mind had partially blocked out much of the experience, and he almost never talked about it. But he did remember that icy grip on his tail as someone pulled hard on it, and the red ropes that appeared with frightening speed around his hands and feet. He remembered thrashing and squealing loudly in pain and fear as he felt a stinging, burning sensation all over his body. He remembered running blindly and tumbling off the tabletop, though he couldn’t say how the ropes had been removed to allow him to run - it all seemed so horribly distant as though it had happened to another rat, somehow, as though it were someone else’s fur that floated down around him in a cloud and tickled his nose and made it hard to breathe. 

But he definitely remembered hiding under a couch for who-knew-how-long, trembling and shaking, jaw slack and eyes frozen open with terror, certain that he would never feel safe anywhere again. He also remembered, with great pain and embarrassment, hiding from all the other rats for weeks as he waited for his fur to grow back - for whoever had pounced on him had pulled his coat out in great handfuls, and he was shamefully nearly naked after it. 

His fur grew back, though it remained it a little patchy in areas ever after, and his tail had a strange angle to it, though for this he wasn’t certain about the cause - had it been pulled too hard by his assaillant, or had he done that himself in his haste to escape? 

All he knew for very certain was that The Phantom was no longer a joking matter. The horrible specter truly existed, and Joseph had come face to face with it. He got into a great many arguments with the other rats, trying to convince them that the Phantom was really real, but some still insisted on mocking the very idea, and this made Joseph terribly anxious - what if the Phantom could hear them? What if he was going to punish them for making fun of him? But he found a certain solidarity in a different group of rats, ones who also said they had seen the Phantom, and as they passed in hallways they’d give each other knowing nods and solemn looks, knowing that they belonged to the wiser class, the ones who knew what awful thing lurked in the shadows and stared down at their little lives with hateful crimson eyes. 

Joseph never went anywhere near the room again, too terrified of what he might find. Even still, Erik made certain not to let his Christine mannequin go outside again, lest leering eyes and grubby, sullying paws become her downfall once more. 

After he had dealt with Buquet and picked the remains of the other rat’s fur out of his teeth, Erik had wept great tears for his mannequin, cradling her fabric gently in his arms. Then, he dried his tears on her, used her to blow his nose, and carried her back into his house where he painstakingly twisted her into her true shape once more, and breathed a sigh of relief that she was fine once more. 

He prepared himself another cup of tea, and then the two of them settled into the couch to have a quiet evening in - though, of course, he knew he would be forgiven for not making any tea for Christine. She had, after all, had quite enough tea already!


End file.
